This morning, The Ancient One appeared wan, gave only indifferent attention to her food (over which self had generously ladled warmed up bacon grease. At this point, she will not worry about Bella’s cholesterol!)

Self immediately text-ed son: Prepare yourself!

He text-ed back: Maybe you should switch her dry dog food.

Self became a little annoyed at the nonchalance.

She had a couple of errands to run, so she ran them.

Upon returning to the house, she headed straight for the backyard. There was The Ancient One, positioned right underneath the magnolia tree (a favorite spot of hers; there’s a depression in the ground there. An enormous black walnut tree once grew in the spot. Five or 10 years after moving in, however, self managed to kill it, possibly from over-watering. She knew nothing — NUTHIN’ — about trees back then). Self looked at the doggie dish: All gone! Once again, self has scared herself silly with imaginings!

Anyhoo, in a much more relaxed state, she resumes trolling the internet. Lands on Café Irreal, a favorite site. There’s a story up about a mysterious mirror.

Self hates mysterious mirrors almost as much as mysterious closets. The closet thing started long, long ago, when self was in grade school. She had a dream that a man with an axe hid in the closet in the bedroom she shared with her sister. When her sister went to the closet and opened it, the man was staring down at her, and self kept trying to warn her sister but for some reason could not speak, or move. As she watched, her sister began to rummage through the things in the closet. And, and — self doesn’t know how the dream ended.

Then, about 10 or 15 years ago, she was watching the new Twilight Zone, and there was a story about a mysterious closet. A girl kept hearing strange sounds from the closet in her room, but every time she described the sounds to her parents, they said she was imagining things . . .

Anyhoo, back to the Café Irreal story.

First of all, self really likes that the main protagonist, a girl named Dani, buys the mirror from a vendor whose wife is “an autumnal blonde with a witchy look.” (See, self is already pro-actively thinking of Halloween! This is not a joke. Costco and CVS pharmacy and all the supermarkets have aisles of Halloween candy. In fact, self bought one of these bags of candy because, she reasoned, they’re going to raise the prices the closer it gets to Halloween.)

Anyhoo — self, what is WRONG with you today? Digressions galore! Back to the story: The girl brings the mirror home. What does she see?

Of course she sees SOMETHING!

Not her face, silly. If she saw her own face, it would be too Dorian Grey.

She sees someone else in the mirror. A man.

Suggest going over to Café Irreal and checking out the rest of the story. Here is the link.